Hospital Life...Day 7

Earlier today I posted a Day 6 & 7 update which included information on yesterday and the early part of today.  Today has been a busy {and not great} day, so I thought I would go ahead and write a post just in case tomorrow gets to hectic to post anything early on in the day.

I shared with you that Peyton's right leg has been swelling above the splint:

After the doctors rounded this morning, someone came by to do an ultrasound on the top exposed portion of her leg to see if they could see signs of a blood clot.  I haven't heard anything, so my assumption is that they did not.

Because Peyton is retaining so much fluid, the attending felt it would probably be a good idea to get an echocardiogram done to ensure that there is not excessive fluid building up around the heart.

On Sunday Peyton had a renal ultrasound to make sure that her kidneys were ok.  They were slightly enlarged but did not show signs that urine was backing up back into them.

She did receive the albumin infusion today.  I am not sure what, if any, effect it has had on her at this point.  If anyone has any ideas on why this infusion is in the old-timey glass IV bottle, please let me know.  We're all curious!

The swelling in the picture at the top is mild compared to how it became as the day wore on.  It became increasingly puffy.  The swelling migrated towards the groin area as well as around the back.  In addition, the redness was moving up towards her hip in one area.  It was warm to the touch also.  The nurse, at my suggestion, marked the redness with a pen so we could see if it was spreading.

Peyton was just so incredibly uncomfortable today, so they decided to move her from the crib into a regular bed.  It's well padded, so there's no risk of her falling out.  It's bigger so there's more room for all the extra pillows and blankets that are being used to prop her in different positions in the efforts to redistribute the fluid that is pooling.  It's also a lot more comfortable for her.

That said, it was pretty obvious that Peyton's room was too small to accommodate a regular sized bed, so the nurses put together a plan to relocate her to a larger room.  A patient was discharged, the room cleaned, and Peyton was moved in to her new space this afternoon.  I must say that next time we wind up in this unit I'm going to have to put in a special request for this "suite"!!

What you see in the above picture is probably only about half of the room!!  This room is huge.  Honestly, it has no additional amenities than the previous room except that it has more space to spread out.  It's got the same couch.  I think it's a bit of a storage spot for additional chairs, so we have 3 guest chairs in here instead of the usual 1.  And I've only just noticed that there are no creepy sea creatures on the walls of this room!!  That's ok.  It's a corner room and two walls are pretty much solid windows so it's got the best view.  Much more comfortable in this room!!

There are probably multiple reasons why this swelling could be happening, but we have to be very careful with Peyton so that we are making sure that we do the right thing for her.  As of right now, I still don't have a final answer as to why this is happening.  One of the times a doctor was called in, they decided to call for Ortho to come and look at it.  The feeling is not that the swelling is related specifically to the fracture.  However, if the splint would need to be removed, then we need Ortho involved.  The same doctor who put the splint on was the one who came up to see her.  He did not feel that the swelling was bone-related.  He did, however, cut a section of the top of the splint about two inches down to create a split to allow for more "breathing room" for the swelling.  If I were to have taken a picture a little while ago, you'd probably say that the swelling has gone down significantly.  I would have to say that the split in the splint probably just allowed for the swelling to shift and redistribute to other areas.

Peyton did not have a good day.  She just had a rough day.  She was pretty sleepy but also very irritable when she was awake.  She's not comfortable in terms of just dealing with that swelling.  She's not herself.  She's gone downhill and we don't know what's at the root of it.  I'm sure everyone here would love to have answers, but they just aren't coming.  It seems like there were some little improvements, but then there are other things that are worse.  I don't know.  This is just so difficult.